Global Governmentality and “Real Liberalism”.

Studies of (global) governmentality have made a significant critical contribution by elucidating the multi-sided character of political liberalism as a critique of (excessive) government as well as a method of government; as driven by concerns with security and economy as much as by liberty and rights; and as in fact governing through freedom as well as through unfreedom. While acknowledging instances of this multi-sided character of liberalism in the canon of liberal political theory, governmentality studies have displayed a tendency to oppose the “real liberalism” (Colin Gordon) of governmentality to its more one-sided and fanciful (ideological or normative) counterpart in political theory. Further developing Hindess’s contributions and drawing on recent postcolonial and critical scholarship in political theory, this paper shows that variants of “real liberalism” are as apparent in the liberal-cosmopolitan (and even, in a different form, the republican-communitarian) canon of political and international thought as in contemporary practices of global governmentality. “Real liberalism” in political and international theory highlights both the originality and limitations of the governmentality approach. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]